On review, there are some men in this photo set. All photos sfw.

That was fascinating, thank you for posting it.

This one made me nearly cheer - I had realized what she was getting at by that point.

There's a similar thing here.

Neat!

I'm also overweight, and a triathlete!

Limitations of BMI - it's a really blunt instrument.

I've been fat and I've been thin. Right now I'm somewhere in the middle, because I'm not in great shape and have been working out sporadically.

I support the idea of expanded standards of attractiveness and health for women, and have certainly suffered when I didn't fit the standard and felt bad about it. And yet I can't deny that when I've had extra weight on my body really didn't work as well or feel as good. It might be true that my health was still relatively good or my risk of certain diseases was not affected, but being fit really feels better to me than having extra pounds enough to change the shape of my body.

I worry sometimes that the fat acceptance movement does people a disservice by suggesting to overweight people that they couldn't feel any better or be any fitter. Most of us can. It's tough if you're predisposed to gain weight easily, as I believe some of us are, but I also personally feel that the effort is worth it for the rewards in energy and abilities. I wouldn't say it's easy, and I don't know what it's like to be someone else, but I know without a doubt then when I fall in the "overweight" section of the BMI (which feels pretty normal to me; to drop to , I feel a lot better than I did on the occasions when I fell into the "obese" section. My BMI in high school was 21.9, which seems great, but on the other hand I wasn't athletic and had wimpy muscles and no cardiovascular endurance. Today, at my racing weight, I'm "overweight" - but could whip my high school ass in a triathlon or road race. So I don't really care if the BMI calls me overweight when I'm in that condition. At my current weight, which feels like too much for me, I'm 27.6. According to the BMI that is still "overweight" but feels a lot different.

Our sedentary world and passive entertainments, our high-calorie food and large portions, are all at least part of why a lot of people have more flesh than they need to. IPersonally, I'd like to see the "worry" over obesity addressed more through infrastructure changes and public health measures like making cities and towns more walkable, disincentivizing car use, having parks and bike paths, increasing growth of local produce and fruit while and ending subsidies on corn and wheat. Blaming individuals for systemic problems and societal changes is lousy, when it's external factors that are responsible for at least part of the increase in the size of Americans on average.

I totally agree with Kate when she says this:

2. Poor nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle do cause health problems, in people of all sizes. This is why it’s so fucking crucial to separate the concept of “obesity” from “eating crap and not exercising.” The two are simply not synonymous — not even close — and it’s not only incredibly offensive but dangerous for thin people to keep pretending that they are. There are thin people who eat crap and don’t exercise — and are thus putting their health at risk — and there are fat people who treat their bodies very well but remain fat. Really truly.

I guess it's like anything - BMI is a reductive number, maybe a helpful guideline in some small ways but certainly not the only measure of fitness and health and not particularly informative without other information.

Good points, Miko. I don't think that the body acceptance movement suggests that "we're perfect just the way we are". It's pretty obvious in my case that when I exercise, when I stop eating fast food, when I stop binge drinking every weekend, I feel better and I lose weight. I see the body acceptance movement wants to turn the laser focus of society away from the "losing weight" part and towards the "feeling better" part.

That's a very awesome link.

I worry sometimes that the fat acceptance movement does people a disservice by suggesting to overweight people that they couldn't feel any better or be any fitter.

I don't think it does that at all. I think the basic message is, "You're going to feel a lot better about yourself if you don't hate yourself, so fuck anyone who tells you to," which is rather hard to argue with. Every FA site I read tends to *hugely* emphasize eating right and exercising, for the love of treating one's body right, instead of for the hateful goal of hating one's body and trying to change it out of that motivation.

And while it may not be a tenet of FA, I *do* believe that we're all perfect as we are. And until we can accept that, it doesn't matter what we eat or how (or whether) we move or what we do at all, we're still going to be acting from bad motives. That total acceptance of self is obviously hard as shit, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or lazy -- it's probably the hardest thing to achieve, and the most important.

I see the body acceptance movement wants to turn the laser focus of society away from the "losing weight" part and towards the "feeling better" part.

Absolutely.

I worry sometimes that the fat acceptance movement does people a disservice by suggesting to overweight people that they couldn't feel any better or be any fitter.

I agree with this. I've been subscribing to Big Fat Blog for a while, and while it has lots of useful stuff on body image, media hype and discrimination; there's also some unhelpful stuff repeated there.

Examples: they keep saying that long-term weight-loss is impossible, and try to cite evidence that people almost always put the weight back on. But that evidence comes from studies of people who've sought medical help to lose weight, and are therefore already struggling: it doesn't represent the population as a whole. I was "obese" but I've kept out of that range for the last 6 years or so. I think if I'd read BFB back then, I'd probably still be that weight.

Also, they play down the ill-effects of extreme obesity, and keep peddling the notion of "set points".

It definitely needs to be taken with a pinch of salt...

Saw this last month: Are eating disorders the Lavender Menace of the fat acceptance movement?. Action/reaction.

I think we're much better off going toward health and away from "losing weight/fat/inches". I know I feel better when my goals are "swam 10 laps after 8 laps last week" than "only 2000 calories today..."

That total acceptance of self is obviously hard as shit, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or lazy -- it's probably the hardest thing to achieve, and the most important.

If I gained 300 pounds, I'm not going to accept that. I am going to hate it, and that is going to be my motivtion to change. I don't get why I should have to accept my body as is no matter what, I don't want to do that. I know my body and I know that there are things I probably should accept and deal with gracefully (like, getting wrinkles as I get older), and things that I should fight tooth and nail (like, gaining a lot of weight). Wanting to change my body isn't a bad motivation; it's me loving myself enough to know that I am more than my body and moving in a good direction for me.

What if you gain 300 pounds because you become disabled and can't exercise? What if you gain 300 pounds as a side effect of some necessary medication? What if you gain 300 pounds because you want kids and can't get pregnant unless you go through IVF and the hormones make you gain weight?

It's a question, to me, about what "loving your body" really means. If it's only about being thin, if that's the only metric we're using, then I think that's skewed. I think it's perfectly valid to say "I want to be as healthy as I can be" and to push to be as active as possible -- but the "as possible" thing is where things turn to shades of gray. If being active is taking over one's life in a negative way, then it's not healthy. If being physically active is physically impossible, or emotionally not going to work right now, then giving yourself a break is not lazy or a cop-out; it's a way of taking care of other parts of your life. That's *also* loving your body and moving in a good direction.

Which is kind of the point -- How can we look at ourselves, and others, and not assume we can tell if they're healthy simply by what they weigh, or assume that we can tell they've "given up on themselves" simply because of what they weigh? How can we prioritize our *entire* selves, and make choices that best reflect what our entire selves need, and how can we extend the courtesy to others of assuming that they, too, are doing whatever their bodies/minds/spirits need?

What if you gain 300 pounds because you become disabled and can't exercise? What if you gain 300 pounds as a side effect of some necessary medication? What if you gain 300 pounds because you want kids and can't get pregnant unless you go through IVF and the hormones make you gain weight?

Obviously, those are special, rare situations, which would have to be taken into consideration.

How can we prioritize our *entire* selves, and make choices that best reflect what our entire selves need, and how can we extend the courtesy to others of assuming that they, too, are doing whatever their bodies/minds/spirits need?

I can be courteous of others as far as staying out of their business and assuming they are living the way they want. However, the thing about the "fat acceptance" movement that bugs is that it seems it's not jut about the individual. If it's all about loving yourself, then why does it matter what I think? Why do I have to love everyone, too? Looking at the pictures in the attached Flickr group, there's an interesting spectrum of the ways different BMIs can look on different people. But there seems to be an attitude of, can you believe BMI would say some of these people are overweight and obese, isn't that ridiculous? Well, no, not really, some of them do appear to be overweight or obese. Again, their life, their issue, not my business, but I don't get why part of the movement seems to be pushing that I'm supposed to pretend like nobody on earth weighs more than modern medicine suggests they should.

And here's where I start confusing myself- like, to look at a picture of someone and say, ok, they're overweight or obese, it seems to me like some would say, oh, that's a bad jugment, that's unfair, etc. But I thought the point of the fat acceptance movement was that being fat was OK and people were trying to be comfortable with how much they weigh. It can seem like a lot of the love my body movement isn't about loving your body but wanting to receive acceptance from other people about your body. Which strikes me as not really productive, right?

isn't about loving your body but wanting to receive acceptance from other people about your body

Well, if by "acceptance", you mean "being about to eat in public without garnering rude stairs" or "occasionally taking the elevator without having random strangers comment on the fact that I didn't take the stairs".

The first may be in my mind, but the second has definitely happened to me, and I'm not even medically considered obese (my fat just sits all around my belly and thighs, instead of in socially-acceptable areas like my boobs or my ass).

I read a really personal blog post written by a woman who has struggled and contiues to struggle with what could be called "adult-onset anorexia". As she lost weight, as her body wasted away from the inside, her fiance began to find her incredibly sexually attractive. Her coworkers and acquaintances started to call her "stunning" and "such a beautiful woman, now". How ridiculously fucked up is that? That we train ourselves to honor and compliment dangerously unhealthy conditions? I'll try and dig it up.

(On the flip side, there are women who are naturally thin who get so much shit, too - "You must be bulimic! Gotta fatten you up, girl! Ugh, I like women with CURVES! You look like a 14 year old BOY!" etc. One prominent example I can think of is Elyse Sewell from the 1st season of ANTM).

Why should we care what other people think? Because we were raised to think the exact same thing. Every nasty thing that someone else has thought about a fat person, I've thought about myself, and sometimes about other people.

Why should we care what other people think? Because we were raised to think the exact same thing.

Beautifully said, muddgirl.

i love this post. per a metaORG post a couple of weeks ago, i got married and was feeling - well, really fat. i don't know how i put on that extra 30lbs over the last 18 months and after eating 1,200 calories a day since february i still couldn't lose the weight. i got angry after two month and i gave up. i was depressed and am afraid of the wedding pictures. but she and i are about the same stats, sure i think i carry a little more weight in my boobs and butt but if this is your worst, give it to me!

i love this post. per a metaORG post a couple of weeks ago, i got married and was feeling - well, really fat. i don't know how i put on that extra 30lbs over the last 18 months and after eating 1,200 calories a day since february i still couldn't lose the weight. i got angry after two month and i gave up. i was depressed and am afraid of the wedding pictures. but she and i are about the same stats, sure i think i carry a little more weight in my boobs and butt but if this is your worst, give it to me!